Derek Paulson, 34, a logistics coordinator from Portland, Oregon, sat down last Tuesday with a leather-bound journal and a cup of cold brew to count the moments his 4,000 hours of jiu-jitsu training had almost, possibly, potentially been necessary for actual self-defense. He discovered exactly 17 instances spanning ten years. The first entry appeared in 2016, when a man at a gas station in Tacoma “seemed aggressive” during a late-night fuel stop. Derek made eye contact for what he estimates was 2.3 seconds. The man did not make eye contact back. Derek slowly paid for his coffee, walked to his car, locked the doors, and drove away. “In retrospect,” Derek told me, “that guy was probably just tired.”
“That was maybe the closest one,” Derek said, scrolling through his leather journal—a notebook he purchased specifically for self-defense reflection, which he has filled with exactly 17 entries over ten years. “The guy was probably armed. He had that energy. You know.”
What Derek refers to as “that energy” is the sensation he experiences at approximately 0.3 situations per month. It is a low frequency. A person who trains jiu-jitsu for 4,000 hours is training roughly 5–6 days per week for ten years. Derek trained 5 days a week for slightly longer. His mat hours were genuine. His near-self-defense-needs were not proportional.
“People ask why I train,” Derek said, flipping to entry #7, a confrontation with a Whole Foods employee over the price of avocados in 2019. “Self-defense, you know. You never know when you’re going to need it.” Derek did not mention that he has, in fact, known with almost certainty that he would not need it for the past 3,950 hours.
The entries in Derek’s journal reveal the escalating specificity of threat-detection that only emerges after years of dedicated grappling. Entry #3 was a barking dog three houses away while Derek was checking his mailbox (2017). The dog was a golden retriever named Biscuit who wanted to play. Entry #8 was a man who “looked at me weird” in a Safeway (2019)—later identified as Derek’s own reflection in a freezer door. Entry #12 was Derek himself, while shadow-boxing in his garage, accidentally elbowing the shelving unit, which fell forward at him. He duck-rolled under it. He recorded this as a self-defense win.
Entry #5 deserves elaboration. In 2018, at a stoplight in downtown Portland, a driver pulled up next to Derek’s car. The driver’s window was open. Derek believed the driver was about to say something threatening. The driver asked for directions to the nearest Starbucks. Derek gave him three Starbucks locations and drove away at the green light at precisely the speed limit. He recorded the interaction as a potential ambush foiled by training awareness.
His trainer at Revolution Grappling, Coach Mike Harrigan, validates the reasoning. “You have to stay alert,” Coach Mike said, demonstrating a sprawl to me that I did not ask for. “People don’t understand how violent things can get, how fast.” I asked if Derek had ever mentioned any actual incidents to him. “Not really, no. But that’s because he’s trained. He presents as confident. Predators sense that.”
Derek presents as anxious. He checked his phone four times during our 20-minute conversation, looking behind him twice. His wife, Sophia, offered a different perspective. “Derek has been ‘almost attacked’ by UPS drivers, aggressive pigeons, and a woman who cut in line at the coffee shop,” she said, gesturing toward the journal on their kitchen table. “One time someone ‘seemed hostile’ because they didn’t smile back at him on the sidewalk. Derek was ready to turn it into a judo throw situation.” She paused. “He did not throw anyone. He said ‘excuse me’ and walked past.”
Entry #11 involved Sophia directly. Derek became convinced that a man following them through a grocery store was tracking their movements. The man was Derek’s own cousin, whom Derek had forgotten about mid-conversation. The cousin was following them to say hello. Derek responded by stepping behind Sophia and assuming a sprawl position until his cousin identified himself by name.
The full inventory of 17 moments breaks down as follows:
- Situations involving actual confrontational language: 2
- Situations involving uncomfortable eye contact: 6
- Situations involving an animal: 3
- Situations involving Derek misinterpreting someone’s lack of sociability as latent violence: 4
- Situations where Derek himself created the threat (garage shelf incident): 1
- Situations where Derek was alone in his car and a thought occurred to him: 1
Entry #9 was particularly instructive. Derek was at a urinal in a public bathroom when a man used the adjacent urinal. Derek was convinced the man was standing too close (standard bathroom spacing). He finished quickly, dried his hands, and remained in the bathroom for forty-five minutes, reviewing the confrontation in his head. The man left after two minutes. Derek considered this a victory.
What Derek will not acknowledge is the obvious: self-defense training for most people is a solution seeking a problem that rarely arrives. The crime rate in Portland is not zero, but it is lower than Derek’s hypervigilance would suggest. His threat-assessment faculty has been trained into a state of permanent false-positive. He trained his responses for a world far more dangerous than Portland.
I asked Derek if he’d ever considered that his training might be working exactly as intended—that constant readiness itself was the prevention, so the lack of incidents proved success, not that he didn’t need it. He stared at me. “That’s the same thing Coach Mike said.”
“Then why keep the journal?” “Because what if next time I’m not ready?” Derek said. “What if entry #18 is the one where I actually need it?”
The practical answer is: you will be ready. Ten years of grappling training doesn’t disappear because you spent three weeks without an incident. If an actual threat materialized, Derek would respond with reflexes calibrated by thousands of hours. But that threat has not materialized, and Derek’s life has become a cautious walk through a world where strangers are potential assailants and pigeons signify something sinister. He has logged 4,000 hours to defend against 17 almost-incidents, most of which were not incidents at all.
His training partners know him as the guy who stays after class to practice de-escalation drills against imaginary opponents. His wife buys him new journals every birthday, filling them with sarcastic dedications. Coach Mike treats him with the patience usually reserved for people recovering from actual trauma.
Derek plans to continue training. “Better safe than sorry,” Derek said, closing his leather journal and glancing toward the window, where a neighbor was loading groceries into a truck. The neighbor waved. Derek did not wave back. He made a note in his journal: “Entry #18 (neighbor’s suspicious enthusiasm, 6:43 p.m., Tuesday). Remained calm. Did not engage.”